The covered bazaar in Damascus, Syria. Renovators have restored much of the “Old City,” but gentrification has made Damascus an expensive place to live. (Hussain/SXC)

Over the past few months, celebrities—Arab and non-Arab alike—have flocked to Damascus to take part in the various celebrations. Guests have included Fayrouz—the so-called female Frank Sinatra of the Arab world—flamenco musicians Robert Wilson and the Piñana Brothers, and Italian playwright Dario Fo. But in the midst of all the excitement, doubts remain as to what this kind of celebration means for Damascus’s economic and political challenges.

The city was selected through a random drawing by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Christa Salamandra, author of A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria, offered a compelling argument for the city’s selection. “Syria’s Arab credentials are probably some of the best in the Middle East,” she told the Globalist. “It is a place where literary forms of culture thrive, particularly the short story. If you add to that the historical buildings, the fact that Syria was the historic seat of the Islamic empire, and the fact that it’s a place that still speaks a lot of Arabic, there is no better place than Damascus.”

Damascus is an ancient city with a modern and vibrant culture. Revitalization of Damascus’s 3,000-year-old Old City is underway as members of the Damascene elite seek to turn crumbling, centuries-old buildings into restaurants, clubs, cafes, and discos. While the buildings’ functions are new, their appearance is not. Renovators pay painstaking attention to historical detail to make the buildings look and feel old.

Yet Damascus’s rejuvenation comes at a cost. Demand for the ancient buildings is raising housing prices all over the capital, making homes in the city unaffordable for its lower-class residents. Ahed Al Hendi, a Syrian activist who fled to Cairo last year after he refused to act as a police informant, explained to the Globalist, “when the people who are running these investments want to open up a restaurant in a new area, they will sometimes demolish entire rows of houses just to make a route to the new restaurant.” Yet gentrification does promise benefits for Syria’s poor. The transformation of Damascus’s old and dilapidated buildings into entertainment and culinary hotspots creates jobs for Syria’s enormous number of unemployed workers.

Syria’s cultural revival also has political consequences. As Al Hendi explained, “They asked a lot of people to sing who were anti-dictatorship. The Syrian government can now say look, these people defending freedom and democracy are coming to Damascus to celebrate the culture.” While the performers may be liberal, their messages at the festival are curtailed. Fayrouz’s heralded opening performance kicking off the festivities was disheartening to critics. Al Hendi, “Fayrouz used to sing about freedom. We grew up to those songs of freedom, democracy, and liberation. She should have said something about that when she performed. But she didn’t.”

Salamandra, however, pointed out that “celebrating Damascus is not necessarily celebrating the regime.” Many Damascenes echo her sentiments. Hanan Kassab Hassan, a Syrian theater critic and the director of the festival, told the Damascus Journal in February that critics “wanted to externalize their conflict on the shoulders of Fayrouz. But she is outside of all politics.”

Yet, as illustrated by China’s controversial hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics, stripping cultural events of political undertones risks giving legitimacy to authoritarian governments. Regimes can point to the lack of dissent at these events as signs of good governance. On top of that, festival organizers face the challenge of making an extravagant cultural celebration relevant to ordinary Damascenes. What’s clear is that a celebration of Arab culture in Damascus carries with it the city’s political and economic baggage. How Damascus handles the situation may have important consequences for next year’s Arab Capital of Culture: Jerusalem.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites